7/30/11

I've been following this awesome blog called LEFT HOOK! BLOG which I've decided I'm going to add to the Blogroll section of my blog. I just read a piece he did about Newsbusters and the Media Research Center. It's exactly what I I've wanted to say about them, but he lays it down best. He explains what the difference is between the conservative MRC and the liberal/progressive MMFA . It's the most important point to make about MRC. Here's just a sample.

From LEFT HOOK! THE BLOG
[...]
The MRC has always portrayed itself as a media watchdog with a conservative bent, but it would be a big mistake to put it in the same pound as liberal media watchdogs like Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), and Media Matters For America (MMFA), and not just because the MRC is extremely conservative. The MRC isn't just a different breed of watchdog. It's an entirely different species from its liberal counterparts.

Media Matters For America lists, as its mission, "comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Part of the mission of FAIR can be found in its name--the "A" stands for "Accuracy." These groups are centrally concerned with, among other things, correcting misinformation. Keeping the record straight. The MRC has a very different mission. The legend of Newsbusters reads "Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias." Their more detailed "About" page tells the same story. They're about "bias," not accuracy.

It shows in their work. An incredible amount of misinformation flows forth from Newsbusters, just as it has always flowed forth from the MRC. Newsbusters is afflicted with a depressingly common ailment of the American right, one about which I've written repeatedly over the years; they see politics as a simple contest between good and evil--themselves being good, the "liberals" being evil--and embrace the idea that reality itself can be subservient to and defined by their own momentary political passions. A large segment of the right has, for years, waged open war on the notion that there is any such thing as an objective set of facts about anything. This is done as a means of denying any sort of victory to those whom it sees as enemies--if there are no universally agreed-upon yardsticks, there's nothing against which to measure the conservatives, nothing that can be used to judge them unambiguously wrong. By this view, more broadly, that which they, themselves, believe and want and do is, by definition, that which is true and proper and right. They hold the converse to be true, as well. The reason accuracy isn't listed as a concern of Newsbusters is because, for the conservatives who toil away at it and (most especially) for those who uncritically groove on its work, "liberal" equals, by definition, "misinformation."
[...] Read Left Hook!'s Entire Post

I confess I visit the Drudge Report often to know what's going on. Still, I read it with a critical eye for the spin Matt Drudge puts on news headlines. Anyone notice Drudge lists Alex Jones's INFOWARS website and him as a source of news? He's had Jones listed just after the first year Obama has been in office.
What is Matt Drudge thinking?

7/28/11

The labeling of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik as a Christian has brought out the victim side of many conservatives in the news. Jon Stewart took notice of the maimed pundits on Fox News tonight, pouring through their complaints and siding with some of their grievances, before compiling and extensive montage of insults culled from the network’s most popular shows.
“The massacre in Norway is a tragic story about the persecution of Christians,” he teased after a clip of Laura Ingraham arguing that labeling Breivik a Christian was disrespectful to the religion. Those that highlight his “crusader mentality,” Stewart advised her, “are not doing it to get at you.” Instead, he argued, they are doing it because of “the shooter’s 1500-page, crucifix-drenched manifesto.”Read Full Article

7/23/11

John McCain: the perfect Manchurian Candidate. A man who has spent more time with communists then any presidential candidate in United States history. McCain cannot deny his radical associations, he's got the wounds to show it. I'm of course talking about his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. All those years of torture, interrogation, and indoctrination could turned him into some sort of communist sleeper cell that would one day become our president. Brainwashing is not that hard to do.

Now why am I saying this and sounding like a John Birch Society crank? Because this ridiculous guilt by loose association crap was used against Obama. The Republican candidates have got their own connections with Bill Ayers they should worry about if they really think its even relevant.

The Annenbergs-- Republicans. Bankrolled William Ayers with $50 million

The Annenbergs-- Republicans. Bankrolled William Ayers with $50 million
But Walter and Leonore weren't just giving money to educational foundations started by William Ayers. They were also giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican National Committee and various other Republican groups, as well as to a whole host of Republican candidates, including the following:

7/21/11

This is a college history paper I did last year for my International Relations class. Its about United State Iran relations in the 20th century. This was my final exam assignment instead of a test. I passed the class with an A on the assignment and an A in my class. This is a good thing to use for anyone doing a paper on Iran.

Fox News' Eric Bolling mischaracterized an education reform bill in California, claiming that "what they want to do" is rewrite textbooks to say that, "by the way, George Washington was a homosexual, or, you know, so and so was a lesbian." In fact, the new law simply requires public schools to include the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans in their curriculum, adding to an existing list of minority groups.

Bolling: Purpose Of CA Education Reform Is To Rewrite Textbooks To Say "George Washington Was A Homosexual"

Bolling: "What They Want To Do" Is Rewrite History Books To Say "George Washington Was A Homosexual." Discussing a California education reform recently signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, Bolling said:

This is California rewriting the textbooks -- the history books -- saying, by the way, George Washington was a homosexual, or, you know, so and so was a lesbian. That's what they want to do. [Fox News, The Five, 7/15/11]

7/16/11

Because the NRA has launched a campaign demanding Eric Holder's resignation over the ATF's Operation Furious, I'd like to lay the facts straight about this tragedy. Some of what the NRA lists as reasons for Holder to resign are based on falsehoods. Other falsehoods are making it around on right leaning blogs and Fox News. Here are some of the most popular. To hear the whole story about the ATF operation, I suggest reading the actual report. Try not to believe what hear based on emotion or political standing.

7/4/11

John CookGawkerJun 30, 2011Republican media strategist Roger Ailes launched Fox News Channel in 1996, ostensibly as a "fair and balanced" counterpoint to what he regarded as the liberal establishment media. But according to a remarkable document buried deep within the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, the intellectual forerunner for Fox News was a nakedly partisan 1970 plot by Ailes and other Nixon aides to circumvent the "prejudices of network news" and deliver "pro-administration" stories to heartland television viewers.
The memo—called, simply enough, "A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News"— is included in a 318-page cache of documents detailing Ailes' work for both the Nixon and George H.W. Bush administrations that we obtained from the Nixon and Bush presidential libraries. Through his firms REA Productions and Ailes Communications, Inc., Ailes served as paid consultant to both presidents in the 1970s and 1990s, offering detailed and shrewd advice ranging from what ties to wear to how to keep the pressure up on Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the first Gulf War. READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

7/1/11

What I posted about the Media Research Center being tax exempt and doing the same phony illegal activities that Media Matters is being attacked for was also posted on Crooks and Liars. It's good that hypocrisy is being talked about and pointed out in the blogosphere.

The idea of Fox News getting high and mighty about Media Matters' DropFox campaign is, well...laughable. However, what might be even more laughable is the idea that they can start a campaign to strip Media Matters of their tax-exempt status. They should be careful what they wish for.
In this clip, viewer Dana Martin from New Orleans tells Fox and Friends why she is so convinced that Media Matters tax-exempt status must be revoked. So convinced, in fact, that she filled in a web form to send a complaint to the IRS about their tax exempt status. And guess where that web form is? On the Fox Nation web page, of course, where else?
But as I said, they should be careful what they wish for. Let's look at some other tax-exempt organizations who also undertake "campaigns" with taxpayer subsidies. There's the Media Research Center, headed by Brent Bozell, who routinely appears on Fox News as a commentator. One look at their website shows that they have some 'projects' of their own which are clearly not educational at all, but purely political.Read Entire Article